Friday, March 10, 2006

March Madness

With the month of March here, we've finally entered the lone sweet spot between the end of the NFL season and the start of the next NFL season -- a full frenzied month of college basketball tournaments. (Yeah, yeah, baseball freaks: I know your season runs for eleven months, starting now. Apparently, the league decided to compensate for the essential dullness of the game by making each team play 4,182 games a season. Wake me when the league championships start.)

Anyway, the magic is already underway, with the conference tournaments unfolding right now and the action spread wide. ESPN2 has the always exciting ACC tournament running all weekend long, with Miami giving Duke a scare as we speak. Meanwhile, ESPN is using the spotlight of their Original Recipe Channel to highlight the games of the Big Ten. Apparently someone in programming went to Penn State, or thinks it's still football season. It's only a matter of time before the networks get involved. (Luckily for me, I've spent the winter developing a nice ass groove in the couch.)

So let's consider this a March Madness open thread. Who are you rooting for? Who do you think has a shot at going all the way? In what specific ways would you like to see Dick Vitale tortured? (Do I have a problem with parenthetical asides?)

Update: Since the comments have turned into a debate about whether Duke's coaching staff and players are really affiliated with the dark minions of Satan or whether they're simply operating as an independent force of unholy evil, I've changed the photo to reflect the new themes. Out of respect for the Dickie V fans, I decided not to reuse this classic image.

22 comments:

Yeah, I know Dickie V's annoying. But I've met him, and I have a ton of friends who work at ESPN and I know he really is a great guy. He IS that enthusiastic, sincere and happy. As nice a guy as there is in broadcasting. I suppose it might make you want to deck him if you had to travel with the guy, and it certainly sucks to hear him drag his Duke-love into every possible conversation...but torture? I'd just give the guy a bear hug, rub his bald head and invite over to my place to watch the tourney—with the stipulation that he has to hand me a hundred dollar bill every time he mentions anything to do with Duke.

I think Vitale's a fine person, but his hyperactive energy and Coach K asskissing drive me crazy. So maybe not torture. An atomic wedgie?

A friend of mine's dad was on a two-hour flight next to Billy Packer. As people filed on the plane, they kept stopping and complimenting Packer. After a bit of this, as the plane's getting ready for take off, my friend's dad turns to Packer and says: "So, you're Billy Packet?" "Yes," Packer smiled, "yes I am." "Christ," he said back, "you suck as an announcer." And then he turned back to his newspaper and sat in silence for the next two hours.

I too love the Dickie V. He's great for drinking games... for example, when he did his first Gonzgaga game this year, it was a drink for every time he mentioned/compared Morrison to JJ Redick or Larry Bird. I think it was about 22 in a 40 minute game.

This will be the first year I'll ever fill out an NCAA pool without picking Kentucky to win it all. I probably won't pick my employer, either, for two reasons. One: I hate their basketball team, being from just across the river in K-Y, and Two: I hate Oscar Robertson.

I saw him curse out a lady after a Bengals game because she'd accidentally bumped into him. It was terrible. People's jaws were dropping all over the place. And he also called my friend Matt a shrimp when he was 8 years old but, in all fairness, Matt still is a shrimp.

Dammit Otto, you've got to stop posting important posts so late in the day. I could have spent my whole work day yesterday talking NCAA!

Of course, it would have mostly been trash talking for my Wolfpack of NC State (I'm from Raleighwood, took a few classes at State), and they had their sorry butts handed to them by lowly Wake Forest in the first round of the ACC tourney. Woe is me.

I used to hate Duke during the Bobby Hurley-C. Laetner days, but since then I've liked them pretty good. I pretty much just pull for ACC teams, in the order of State, UNC, Duke, Wake Forest, Maryland, and then the rest (except for BC - no freakin' way BC should be in the ACC).

I really don't mind Dukey V either. Maybe he activates some of them eye-talian genes I've got in me, or maybe I just think he's Hans Moleman on LSD. I just plain likes him.

Year in, year out, Duke is one of the best teams in college basketball. Coach K is an awesome coach (though I agree with Norby about his face looking like a rat's), and he recruits the best players in the country. Every team they play gives them their best shot, and Duke usually beats 'em anyway.

All the stuff about refs favoring Duke is just sour grapes. I don't think announcers favor Duke because their Duke, but because they're on TV all the time and they always win. The announcers just give tons of mouth love to whoever wins a lot.

"During my three years at Duke, I've come to realize that people outside of the university aren't too fond of us. They say we're stuck-up, we think we are better than everyone else, we're ugly and we're all from New Jersey."

And ends with this:

"There are plenty of women here who truly have it all: the looks, the brains, and the personality. Just consider yourself lucky when you meet one of us... and try not to be too intimidated."